The Promise of the East: Nazi Hopes and Genocide, 1939–43

385 Pages·2019·3.96 MB·English

by  Christian Ingrao

CONTENTS
Cover
Front Matter
Synoptic table of plans for Germanization, displacements of population,
and construction
Introduction
Notes
Prologue: The moment of Utopia (September 1939–summer 1943)
The mist-enshrouded time of foundations (1 September–30 November
1939)
The round of short-term plans (1 December 1939–21 June 1941)
New horizons: the General Plan for the East (22 June 1941–15
February 1943)
Notes
Part I The men and the institutions of Utopia
1 A nebula of institutions
The diversity of the institutions of Utopia
How consensus was generated
Forms and thoughts of the future in the East: the three main
general plans
Notes
2 Networks and trajectories of the men of the East
‘Men’ of the East? A world in itself
Professional networks and military networks
Towards genocide? The itineraries of the experts
Notes
3 Osteinsatz: the journey to the East, a form of Nazi fervour
The East, between Utopia and anxiety
The myths of the Great Trek
The racial, hygienic and educational dimensions
Notes
Conclusion
Notes
Part II Times and spaces of Utopia
4 General planning for the East
The curse of Germanic insularity lifted
Umvolkung: dissimilation or ethnomorphosis?
The drying up of the alien ocean: mass murder and Utopia
Notes
5 At the School of Fine Arts
Thinking about space
City, Volksgemeinschaft and segregation
Dreaming of rural space: the architect, the SS and the peasant
Notes
6 From one plan to the next? The Kammler sequence
On planning style: the WVHA, Hans Kammler and their
estimates
Achieving Utopia? The institutionalization and failure of building
programmes
From the future back to the present: Utopia evaporates
Notes
Conclusion
Part III The case of Zamość
Introduction
Notes
7 The microcosms of radical policy: Zamojszczyzna
The men, the space and the past of Zamojszczyzna
Institutional microcosms
The land of all Nazi radicalisms
Notes
8 The politics of the laboratory
Classifying, expelling, deporting: the social engineering at the
basis of Utopia
Building: the Nazi attempt to shape the territory
Building, installing, settling: at the heart of a new world
Notes
9 The nightmare: from the ethnic domino effect to the flames of
despair
In full sight of all: the extermination of the Jews, prior to
Germanization
A society martyred
Wars of the entre-soi (‘inter-self wars’) (1943–1945)
Notes
Conclusion
Notes
Appendix 1: Main acronyms used in the text
Appendix 2: Organizational chart of the SS institutions of Utopia
Timeline
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Maps
Maps
Map 1 First Generalplan Ost (1940)
Map 2 Second Generalplan Ost (summer 1941)
Map 3 Territories to be colonized at the height of Nazi hopes
Chapter 5
Map 4 Warsaw, railway junction of the General Government
Map 5 Warsaw, railway junction allowing access to the East
Map 6 Plan of the conurbation of Łódź (Litzmannstadt during the
occupation), 1942
Dedication
For Balian, son of Tumult and Fantasy
In memory of Vincent Laporte
The Promise of the East
Nazi Hopes and Genocide, 1939–43
Christian Ingrao
Translated by Andrew Brown
polity
First published in French as La Promesse de L’Est. Espérance nazie et génocide, 1939–1943 © Éditions du
Seuil, 2016
This English edition © Polity Press, 2019
Maps 1-3. Drawn up by Éditions du Seuil after Karl Heinz Roth and Claus Carsten in Mechtild Rössler,
Sabine Schleiermacher (ed.), Der ‘Generalplan Ost’. Hauptlinien der nationalsozialistischen Planungs-und
Vernichtungspolitik, (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1993) pp. 62–65.
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ISBN-13: 978-1-50952778-6
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ingrao, Christian, author.
Title: The promise of the East : Nazi hopes and genocide, 1939-43 / Christian Ingrao.
Other titles: Promesse de l’Est. English
Description: Medford, MA : Polity Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018009174 (print) | LCCN 2018011045 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509527786 (Epub) | ISBN
9781509527755 (hardback)
Subjects: LCSH: World War, 1939-1945--Europe, Eastern. | National socialism--Europe, Eastern. |
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Europe, Eastern. | Europe, Eastern--History--1918-1945. | Genocide--
Europe, Eastern--History--20th century. | Massacres--Europe, Eastern--History--20th century. | World War,
1939-1945--Atrocities. | Soviet Union--History--1917-1936. | Germany--History--1933-1945.
Classification: LCC D802.E92 (ebook) | LCC D802.E92 I5313 2018 (print) | DDC 940.53/18--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018009174
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Acknowledgements
It is always a little intimidating, after writing a book, to embark on the
recognition of the countless debts contracted over the course of its slow
gestation. But are they not a kind of bond, do they not form an inextricable
network, like the cradle of this book?
This book was built a little obscurely, after a long period of wandering in the
desert, a time when history could not involve the writing of a book. It started in
2002 after a summer in America when, with Christian Delage, I dreamed up a
first version of this project. Life, painful and hazardous, meant that it was only
eleven years later that I could pick up the traces.
Around me then gathered my attentive mentors, Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau,
Gerd Krumeich, Henry Rousso and Nicolas Werth; my fellow historians,
Ludivine Bantigny, Nicolas Beaupré, Romain Bertrand, Olivier Bouquet, Bruno
Cabanes, Quentin Deluermoz, Roman Huret, Anne Kerlan, Roman Krakovsky,
Vincent Lemire, Benoît Majerus, Hervé Mazurel, Manon Pignot, Malika Rahal,
Mathieu Rey, Anne Rolland, Jehanne Roul, Emmanuel Saint-Uscien and Giusto
Traina. Some of them, such as Elisa Claverie, Catherine Hass and Véronique
Nahoum-Grappe, are not historians and I am thankful to them for this – as I am
to my friends of forever and never, Vincent Liaboeuf, David Ortola and
Christophe Raoux.
This book also benefited from readings, encouragement, advice and information
and photocopies, photos and books from Johann Chapoutot, a sure friend and a
constant reader, but also from Nicolas Patin, Maciej Hamela, Élise Petit, Jean-
Yves Potel, David Silberklang and Harrie Teunissen. It grew from the granitic
fidelity of the Grand Elder, Olivier Buttner, the discreet and thwarted support of
Sophie Hoog, a caring family and the unfailing support of parents, sisters and
nieces, the Army of Those who Dream … and, I hope I would never forget, the
sagacity of Samuel Castro, who politely but firmly told me one day in September
2012 that I should address myself to his office, which would respond to my
importunity.
But let us leave such sibylline remarks there, even if they are the reality: it
remains to me to thank a poet, Michaël Batalla, who, sometimes a little silently
and involuntarily, works in depth on the writing of what animates me; a
journalist, Johan Hufnagel, the gruff companion of my uncertainties and my
emotions; a publisher, Séverine Nikel, who found a home at Seuil for this book;
and a dozen wonderful teenagers who, during Sunday rhetoric sessions, have
given a new meaning to what was becoming obscure. I can assure them that the
bonds between us will endure.
And Esteban, Nathan, Gaia and Balian.
At last.
Paris, 21 June 2016